Recent years have seen active development of compact and lightweight electronic devices. Liquid crystal display devices mounted in such electronic devices are required to consume less power. One drive method which reduces power consumption in liquid crystal display devices is a drive method called “pause drive” in which a drive period for writing a voltage of a drive image signal in accordance with image data (referred to below as an “image signal voltage”) by means of the scanning of scanning signal lines is followed by a pause period in which the writing is paused by rendering all scanning signal lines inactive. In this pause drive, no control signals and suchlike are provided to a scanning signal line driver circuit and a data signal line driver circuit, so that the operation of the scanning signal line driver circuit and the data signal line driver circuit is paused, resulting in reduced power consumption. Note that the pause drive is also referred to as “low-frequency drive” or “intermittent drive”.
For example, Patent Document 1 describes a display device in which a liquid crystal module is controlled by a liquid crystal controller. The liquid crystal module has a normal drive mode and a pause drive mode. When the liquid crystal controller receives an operation signal, which specifies the normal operation mode, or a pause signal, which specifies the pause drive mode, from the liquid crystal module, the liquid crystal controller transmits image data, along with various control signals required for controlling the liquid crystal module, to the liquid crystal module in accordance with the received operation signal or pause signal, thereby performing screen refresh or pausing refresh.
Furthermore, Patent Documents 2 to also describe display devices in which pause drive is performed. Specifically, Patent Document 2 describes a microcomputer which can achieve low power consumption during a low-power consumption mode while continuing the operation of a specific peripheral circuit. Patent Documents 3 describes display device drive methods which can achieve low power consumption while keeping satisfactory display quality with regard to brightness, contrast, and the like. Patent Document 4 describes a display device in which circuits with high power consumption are stopped during non-refresh periods, thereby reducing power consumption.